Emily's Birth Story: Guest Post

I love that in the time I've been NOT blogging, my family has come together to make sure I have some new posts--hehe.

But seriously I am THRILLED to present the birth story of my cousin. As she will tell, she planned a natural hospital birth, and ended up getting her wish, though not quite in the way she'd planned! She was induced the day before her due date for low fluid, but even with an induction and pitocin, she was able to have a natural, vaginal birth!

I think part of why she was able to handle pitocin contractions so well was that she REALLY did her homework--took both a Bradley course and a Hypnobirthing course, and practiced relaxation exercises nightly.

I can't say enough for the power of taking REAL (non-hospital) birth classes--it is essential if you are planning a natural birth. PREPARED childbirth is completely different from UNPREPARED childbirth . . . and if you want to have a natural birth in a hospital, it is a must.

Another really smart move on her part was hiring a doula. I would never attempt to birth in a hospital without a doula. Doulas GREATLY reduce the odds of medication use, c-sections, and a host of other interventions.

Wow I practically got a mini-blog post in with my intro here! But with no further ado, the birth story of Ava Rose!


The third trimester of my pregnancy was surprisingly good. I had hyped myself up to be totally miserable, and even until the last few days I was just waiting for the misery to begin. I didn’t think it could be so easy. Granted, putting on underwear and bending over got to be pretty difficult, but I was still able to take 4 yoga classes a week (obviously with a lot of modifications) and I was still sleeping through the night with no problem (obviously with a lot of bathroom breaks haha). The back pain I had in the end of the first/beginning of the second trimester had disappeared and I was fine! I had heartburn, but it was totally manageable. Little biscuit was kicking up a storm, but I loved the reminder that she was doing well in there. :)

We were super prepared, having taken a Bradley course as well as a Hypnobirthing class – I was determined to do this as naturally as possible and to labor at home as long as possible, especially since apparently I have white coat syndrome. I dutifully listened to my hypno-relaxation CD every night and visualized how I wanted my birth to go. I was nervous about the pain, but I hoped I would be able to handle it as well as my cousin Adrienne and my friend Diane who both had given birth recently.

I had been having sonograms and fetal monitoring every appointment because my blood pressure was high at every appointment, due to a case of white coat syndrome. I monitored my BP myself at home and it was always completely fine, so my doctor did believe that it was WCS, but he said better safe than sorry in terms of knowing if everything was going ok in there and I didn’t mind seeing her so often, that’s for sure! But he had been saying that he wouldn’t let me go much past my due date, even though there really wasn’t a real issue, and I wasn’t looking forward to arguing with him about induction (which I REALLY wanted to avoid, since I had learned that being induced almost always inevitably leads to more interventions, i.e. an epidural and/or c-section). I had my 39/40 week appointment on Wednesday, June 8, 2 days before my due date. Two weeks before, my doctor had said my amniotic fluid level was getting rather low, at 8.5, but the next week it was 10 so I wasn’t worried. But unfortunately at my appointment on June 8 the sono tech said my fluid level was 5.5, and my doctor said that was dangerously low and he wanted to induce. I was to go home and finish packing, eat dinner, then make my way to the hospital. Unfortunately I am rather cowed by doctors and so didn’t put up much of a fight, even though he had told me the week before that AFL levels can fluctuate greatly even from one moment to another if the baby changes position. After we left the office I called my doula to let her know what was going on and she suggested taking a bath, and asking for a repeat sono when we got to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital around 10:00 PM and we filled out paper work and answered the same questions a few times. They were all confused that I was asking for a repeat sono, and the intern who came in to see me said that she would call my doc to see if he would be ok with that since she didn’t feel comfortable just doing it since that would indicate she was questioning his diagnosis. Ok, fine. Why would he refuse, since a sono is so quick and easy? When she finally came back she said that he didn’t want her to do one – we had enough information to make an informed decision. We were rather shocked, what was the point in refusing us? I called my doula and we spoke about it a little. We finally decided that Trevor would talk to my doctor directly since I’m not very good at sticking up for myself. It was already 1:00AM at this point and I was hungry – but of course they don’t let you eat in the hospital! My doctor called and Trevor spoke with him for a while – telling him that while we know it won’t change his recommendation, it might change our decision to go forward with the induction. He FINALLY agreed. This was really not the way I had imagined things going, so I was sad and disappointed, tired and hungry. We got the repeat sono, the levels still looked low, so we decided to proceed. Of course, even though we had arrived at the hospital to be induced, no one had put in the orders for the Cervadil (medication that goes on the cervix to try to stimulate labor that way). It was 4:00AM before I even received the medication! Definitely not the way I had hoped things would go.

The Cervadil is a 12 hour dose, meaning that it sits in there for 12 hours and hopefully produces some reaction and after that they would start me on Pitocin. I appreciated that my doctor didn’t start right in with the Pitocin, but was trying to start things a little more gently (the Cervadil helps to soften and dilate the cervix, hopefully causing labor to start more or less on its own, whereas Pitocin actually makes your uterus contract, resulting in stronger, longer, more painful contractions). During the 12 hours I tried to sleep as much as possible, and Trevor and I hung out watching Seinfeld on the iPad that we had put on there for my labor. I was starting to have some regular contractions, but they were hardly noticeable. By 4:00PM I was still only 1.5cm dilated and 50% effaced. Blargh. Cue the Pitocin. They reassured me they start with a low dose and increase it periodically so you only have as strong a dose as produces a reaction. They started me at 10 (whatever measurement that would be) and I think I ended somewhere around 20-25. My doctor let me know that he’d be back in a couple hours to check on my, and to probably break my water. I was a little against this, but by this point I’d already been in the hospital for 20 hours and I was hungry, tired, sick of all the crazy monitors and wires, and ready to get this over with (even though we’d learned in class that ideally you should avoid having your water broken artificially). I looked at it as the lesser of most of the interventions I’d already received, since this does have to happen anyway, and there was a good chance that it would really get things moving.

At 9:00PM I had only dilated maybe another cm. In all honestly, having my water broken was probably the most painful part of my birth. I think my husband got pretty concerned for me, my mom told me that he wasn’t prepared at all for my reaction. It was mostly because I was dilated so little and cripes, my doctor has huge hands (he’s a big guy!). With that over, things did start to move more quickly. My parents had been driving all day and arrived soon after my water was broken. Mom didn’t want to come inside since she knew she’d hate to see her little girl on all the monitors and in pain. They went back to the house to get some sleep. My doula had arrived right after my water was broken (she was there earlier in the day but I told her she could go home and put her kids to bed, etc., since nothing was happening yet). I tried to stand/sit on the birth ball for a while, but it was hard with all the wires, plus I was required to wear compression stockings since my mother had had a blood clot after my brother was born. I’m not sure they could have packed any more wires onto me! Going to the bathroom was such a process, but I had to pee so often and sitting on the toilet was where I was happiest. Things were definitely getting more painful, and the nurse wanted me to change positions on the bed, so she had me lay on my side. NOPE. That was the only time I said that I didn’t think I could do it, because it definitely was painful and I still wasn’t that far into active labor. I knew if I had to lie like that, things would go downhill fast. Luckily my nurse, Elaine, was willing to work with me. We figured out how it was possible to keep me connected to the fetal monitor while sitting on the toilet. I probably was in there for over an hour, some of that time Elaine had to actually sit on the floor and hold the monitor in place so that it would work. This was really a turning point, and I was able to focus totally on relaxing the muscles and opening up. The pain was much more manageable when I was able to totally open up and relax through it, which is what we learned in all our classes but I found very hard on the bed or standing. What also helped was what my friend Diane told me – the contractions don’t last that, usually only about a minute, so you only have to get through that and you’ll have some relief for a little while.

This whole time I was able to really relax and almost sleep between contractions. Time seemed to pass faster than I thought, which my hypnobirthing teacher had said can happen when you’re “in the zone”, as I think of it. Trevor said it looked like I was almost in a trance – I understand now what our Bradley teacher meant about being more “inside” than focused on the outside. Elaine finally had me get back in the bed after maybe an hour and a half on the toilet and I believe at this point I got checked and was at 5cm. I was happy to hear this because that was a lot of movement in that short time I was on the toilet. From that point it seemed to go by in a total haze. I can remember moaning quietly through the later contractions, and maybe squirming a little. I was most comfortable on my back on the bed, which I didn’t expect because we learned laying on your back is not the best position, but it seemed to work for me.

It took probably around 2 hours to reach the point where I felt like I needed to push. I sort of was doubting myself, and I remember saying to my doula “I think I need to push” and she told me that was fine. Our nurse Elaine was on her break and would be coming back soon, so we decided to wait to tell anyone until she came back. I was not able to stop little pushes that my body was doing by itself and again doula Robin told me it was fine and to even make some grunting pushing noises if I needed to. Elaine came back with my doctor who checked me and said “Are you ready to have a baby?” - YES.

On the first push he was already able to see her head, which I felt was encouraging! He stayed with me through the first 2 contractions and then said “I’m going to let Elaine work with you for a little while” and he went to have a coffee or something, which I thought was a little strange! But after one more contraction and the 2 pushes that went with it, she went to go get him since obviously I was pushing pretty effectively! Everyone laughed when I said “I’m starting to sweat, can I put my hair up?” – which I did but then asked if it looked ok. I knew that I was soon going to be in a lot of pictures, so, ever conscious of how I look in pictures, I needed to know I wasn’t going to regret them haha. The next contraction and she was crowning, which was a little uncomfortable since I wasn’t able to get her head out in those 2 pushes. The doctor asked if I wanted to touch her head, which I said no to – I was uncomfortable and didn’t want to move haha. But he said “wow look at all that hair, it’s a girl right? We can give her a little curl” and played with her hair while she was crowning – I appreciated the comic relief. He prepared me for the next contraction by saying “Ok Emily, this is the part that’s going to hurt but you can’t stop, just push through it”. The next 2 pushes and her head was out! Honestly it didn’t hurt as much as I expected it to, as having your skin tear sounds pretty awful. One more push and she was born!! Ava Rose Burton entered the world at 5:38am on June 10, 2011, on her due date. They wrapped her in a blanket and put her on my chest, where she cried her little heart out. Trevor cut the cord, they wiped her up a little and then put her right on my chest to stay warm. We cuddled for a little bit and then I tried to feed her. She latched on right away, which was great! All the while, I delivered the placenta, and got stitched up (uncomfortable!). I can push out a baby no problem apparently, but I reverted to my old squeamish ways when he was checking and stitching haha. My parents were there waiting outside, so they got to come in right away after I was cleaned up. It was also wonderful that the hospital never insisted that she go to the nursery – they did her first bath in the room (which had a warmer if it was needed), they let me nurse her while she got the vitamin K shot to help comfort her, let me keep feed and bond with her before the eye ointment was applied, and let me keep her temp up with skin-to-skin contact. I was just really happy that she never had to leave me.

I was almost embarrassed that no less than 4 nurses came in to tell me what a wonderful job I’d done and to ask how I was able to handle it so well; one even stopped my parents in the hall to tell them how amazed they were at how well I did. I think I was mostly lucky in that I don’t think my body reacted as strongly as others to the Pitocin. I handled the contractions as well as I could and tried to relax as much as possible, keeping in mind what we learned in our birth classes and that really helped me as well. I won’t say that hypnobirthing was completely responsible for how well I handled the pain, but I know it definitely helped to train my body to relax to the CD every night before bed. I think all the yoga I did helped as well. In the end I knew it was necessary pain, which I think makes all the difference. My body just knew what to do and I was along for the ride! I also don’t think it hurt that I was completely exhausted so my body kind of shut down between the contractions to conserve the energy I had left – we were in the hospital around 32 hours before she was born, without any food and only ice chips as a “drink”.

When all was said and done, our experience ended up being perfect. While it got off to a rocky start, I couldn’t be happier with how Ava came into the world!

Maternity Support Belt

So I got this Maternity Support Belt at Babies R Us last week, and I am loving it!

I feel like it has REALLY been helping my back--I can totally feel that my stomach is better supported when I am wearing it and not PULLING on my back. Or not as much or not in the same way. Before getting acupuncture (and a few days later, this belt), I had been taking Tylenol every evening for probably a week, so I could fall asleep without being in pain. Since getting acupuncture and then getting the belt, I think I have only taken Tylenol once in the past ten days. So it is a serious improvement!

In other news, I'm supposed to leave right now and go to this La Leche League Meeting. Going to a meeting is part of the "homework" of my Bradley Class (which, by the way, is still going well though I have neglected to write about it for awhile), but I am SO unmotivated to go tonight. My Mom visited me from Sunday until today, and we did a ton of cleaning, cooking, and general pre-baby prep. I am TIRED and do NOT feel like leaving my house tonight.

And honestly, I really do know a TON about breastfeeding (I mean, for someone who has never done it). Sigh. Sorry Dr. Bradley, it is not happening.

Third Bradley Class

So on Monday we went to our third Bradley Class. I was going to post about this yesterday but I couldn't for the life of me remember what the overall theme of this class was. That's because it was "Pregnancy". LOL!

We looked at some fetuses in different stages and learned about what was going on with them during that stage. I told James that I thought it was funny that James David was still considered a "fetus" because that implies (to me) something immature and unable to sustain its own life. When James David's head is poking out of one side of my belly and his butt is poking out on the other side and we play games of poking his feet so he kicks us, I'm not thinking "our fetus", I'm thinking there is a baby in there!

Anyway, we also talked about the different parts of the female and baby-related anatomy, labeled this diagram, etc.

As part of our progressive practice of relaxation, we wives got to give our husbands a neck/head/face massage. It's supposed to help them understand what we need from them during labor, how they are supposed to communicate with us, etc.

So that was that!

In related news, I've been feeling a bit down the last couple weeks because I miss teaching and/or taking classes (as a student). It's been hard seeing my old coworkers and friends go back to school (teaching) and seeing my sisters and cousins go back to school (learning).

But today I had a realization. I AM in a class--the Bradley Class. Every day I am supposed to record my diet and protein, I am supposed to practice relaxing, take walks, and do other kinds of exercise to prep for labor. I've been a real slacker with all this practicing and exercising, but why? What I most want is to be in a class--I AM in a class. I need to take it more seriously, because honestly there is nothing I need to learn more, right now, than how to successfully and easily birth a baby. So I decided today to take it more seriously and make more of an effort to think of all the exercises and things as assignments for a class--if I want to get a good grade, I have to spend time working on it every day.

So that's that.

Brewer Diet Update

So I'm supposed to be tracking the food I eat this week, counting how many grams of protein I get, and trying to follow the Brewer diet as well as I can. I got an Email from our Bradley instructor today sending me this modified Brewer Diet for vegans. So I think I am okay, though we do not drink fortified soy milk since our efforts to reduce our soy consumption probably more than a year ago . . . but I'm not that worried.

Anyway, I'm actually really into keeping food logs and tracking my protein, something I wouldn't really have known before pregnancy. My midwife had me do a food log when I first started seeing her, so this is my second one.

The focus of this log is on counting the amount of protein you get. I have been really getting into it. When I made a pizza the other night, for instance, I added up all the protein in each ingredient of the pizza, like this:

1.5 cups gluten free pastry flour--9 grams
1.5 cups oat flour--18 grams
1 cup buckwheat flour--20 grams
2 tablespoons chia seed--5 grams

(This was all the dough)

Sauce--6 grams
Vegan cheese--10 grams
Carrot--.6 grams
1 cup kale--5 grams
1 cup broccoli--5 grams

So the entire pizza had 78 grams of protein (beat that, gluteny non-vegan pizza)! We cut it up into 8 pieces, so each piece of pizza had 9.75 grams of protein.

So, as an example, this is what I mean when I say I am getting really into tracking my protein. If I had a non-vegan, "normal" diet, I could probably just look up online somewhere how many grams of protein was in a piece of pizza, but clearly with this kind of homemade pizza, I need to figure it out myself. To my delight.

Anyway, the ideal amount of protein for the Brewer diet is 80-100 grams, and for three days now I have consistently gotten around 75 grams--(78.8, 75.7, 73). Honestly I think that's pretty darn good. Keep in mind that most diets do NOT ask for this much protein, and you would never need this much if you weren't pregnant. Honestly it is kind of hard for me to just plain eat this much food--I'm typically not that big of an eater, and while I have been PLENTY hungry and I think I've eaten PLENTY as a pregnant lady, I still don't quite have the capacity for food that other people seem to--though I did out-eat James, his Mom, and his Step-Dad by several helpings the other day. I'm not worried about myself--I'm gaining weight fine and the baby is growing right on target.

I DO appreciate the encouragement to fill my diet with lots of healthy foods right now since James will be doubling his weight in the next 7 weeks. So I'm sure he and I both need all this fat and protein and calcium, etc, and I'm just plain not worried that I have 75 grams on average instead of 80.

As I previously mentioned, Dr. Brewer looks like he could stand to eat a little less, to be honest--maybe I should make a diet for HIM.

Second Bradley Class

Yesterday was our second Bradley class! The topic this time was nutrition. James was nervous about letting it out of the bag that we are vegan, so we agreed not to say anything about it if we could avoid it.

However, when we played a version of the newlywed game where the husbands had to list their wives favorite foods in different categories--including dairy foods, egg foods, protein foods, etc, I decided there wasn't really much getting around it.

"Well, it might be hard for him to do my favorite egg foods," I explained. "We're actually vegan. So we don't eat dairy, or eggs, or meat."

Our Bradley instructor's eyes bulged at this news.

The approach to diet in Bradley classes is based on the Brewer diet. You'll notice that the Brewer Diet includes four dairy choices and two eggs every day, and liver once a week. Additionally, you should aim to get 80-100 grams of protein daily.

Our instructor was nice about it, said that she knew there were lots of substitutes for milk and lots of non-meat protein sources. "But eggs are SO important to your nutrition! I'll have to ask my fellow Bradley instructors what to eat instead . . . but wow, how will you get 80 grams of protein!"

James and I reassured her that we thought we probably got plenty of protein and were generally pretty nutritionally savvy. "We have lots of friends who are very knowledgeable about nutrition," I explained. "So we're pretty confident in our health."

And we are. Rather than feeling nervous or insecure about our diet choices, we more felt sorry for her that she was so concerned about us. On the ride home we reflected that it must be difficult for vegans that don't have the educational and family and friend support that we have. People are so misinformed about nutrition that unless you surround yourself with the right people and information, I think it would be quite easy, as a vegan, to constantly be questioned by others, and therefore, questioning yourself, about whether this is *really* a healthy diet.

"I was much less confident about it before we started dating," James said to me as we discussed.
I snorted. "Yeah, well, your vegan diet at that time consisted of potato chips, chocolate soymilk, and bread and hummus. You shouldn't have felt very confident!"
"Oh right."

I also couldn't help to notice, as we watched a video presentation by Dr. Brewer, that he was significantly overweight. Unfortunately, it makes it hard to take him very seriously.

But, it is hard to deny the research--0 cases of toxemia out of 7000 people who followed the Brewer diet. And they say that they don't know what causes it. Wow. More and more it is obvious to me that health comes down to diet. I can't help feeling sorry for the people I see in the store, overweight, diabetic, wheezing, suffering . . . I wish they could KNOW, deep inside, what I know now about the way to find health.

Anyway, the rest of the class was quite fun--we bonded more with our fellow classmates, talked about breastfeeding, one of my favorite subjects, practiced the pregnancy exercises we learned last time, and practiced relaxing. Hopefully by the time this baby decides to be born, James and I will feel quite ready to bring him into this world. :-)

First Bradley Class

So we attended our first Bradley Class last night and it was really nice! It is just us and one other couple at our teacher's house. It was nice to meet someone else about as pregnant as I am (she is due 10 days after me). They seemed really nice and we liked our teacher too.

The Bradley Series (also known as "husband-coached childbirth) is 12 weeks of classes, so we'll finish just before my due date. They think that this is how long you need to really learn the things they are teaching you, which they expect you to practice at home--things like relaxing on cue, different pregnancy exercises, etc.

This first class we learn about how to take a relaxing cue from our partner, and different pregnancy exercises such as squatting, kegels, butterfly stretching, etc.

Another thing I learned about Bradley is that it is really into the "Brewer Pregnancy Diet", which believes you should be eating 100 grams of protein a day, including several servings of milk products, 2 eggs, etc. Wait until they find out we are vegan . . . it is pretty difficult to eat that much protein as a vegan, though we get more than most people think. I counted up my protein from yesterday and I think it was about 50 grams, and I didn't even eat anything that protein-rich--I would say that was a VERY normal eating day for me. So I'm not doing too bad.

After the other couple left at the end of the class, we were chatting a bit with our teacher and told her we were going to have a homebirth, as she mentioned in the class that she had had a homebirth with her youngest son, and she freaked out on us (in a good way). She was SOOOO excited for us that she kept talking to us and didn't let us leave for another 10 mins or something, heheh. It seems like everyone who does homebirth just loves it, so that is really good to hear.

Anyway, we'll have our next class on Labor Day. Stay tuned.